My guild ran the class that I took and it was the only class I did for the following two years until the symposium came up. If you have a friend who does machine quilting get them to guide you one wet weekend day perhaps as seeing it done can help. When I did my class I hated my work. It really looked so unskilled but....I persevered and pulled out my test piece again a month or so down the track and thought it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Now I practice a new pattern briefly and then my quilt I am working on becomes my practice piece as it is the repitition that helps you improve. Really doing a pattern over and over does help you get better. I see every quilt as a practice of some sort - piecing or quilting etc. My friend told me that once. She said "why not have a finished project to demonstrate a skill you learnt instead of an entire lot of practice squares not particularly useful to anyone. So.....give it a go and persistence is probably the only way to improve. Good luck.